2018 Oscar Predictions – BEST ACTOR (August): Debuts From Christian Bale, Daniel Kaluuya and Algee Smith

Erik Anderson August 1, 2017

The Best Actor top 9 is exactly the same, albeit with a few placement changes. Denzel Washington (Roman Israel, Esq.) and Bryan Cranston (Last Flag Flying) leapfrog over Tom Hanks (The Papers) to land at #3 and #4, respectively. Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour) and Daniel Day-Lewis (Phantom Thread) keep a firm hold on the top two spots.

Even with a new #10, Donald Sutherland in The Leisure Seeker, he only moves up one spot to get there, bumping last month’s #10 (Hugh Jackman in The Greatest Showman) to #11. Javier Bardem, however, makes a sizable jump from #17 to #12 on the strength of the mother! teaser released just yesterday.

There are three debuts this month. The highest is Christian Bale (Hostiles) at #13. Hostiles looks to hit more than a few fall festivals (including Toronto) but has yet to secure distribution. Get Out‘s Daniel Kaluuya and Detroit‘s Algee Smith come in at #16.

Here are the 2018 Oscar predictions for Best Actor for August from the Gold Rush Gang. Keep an eye on all of the Gold Rush Gang’s 2018 Oscar predictions updated LIVE throughout the month.

Green – moves up from last month
Red – moves down from last month
Blue – debut/new entry
Orange – re-entry

	BEST ACTOR	ERIK ANDERSON	BRYAN BONAFEDE	GREG HOWARD	EVAN KOST	JASON OSIASON	KENNETH POLISHCHUK	DENIZCAN SÜRÜCÜ	RICHARD ANTHONY	ŞÜKRÜ SÖĞÜT	MATT DINN	TOTAL POINTS

1	Gary Oldman – Darkest Hour	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	100
2	Daniel Day-Lewis – Phantom Thread	3	3	2	2	5	2	4	4	2	3	80
3	Denzel Washington – Roman Israel, Esq.	2	2	10	3	3	3	2	2	3	2	78
4	Bryan Cranston – Last Flag Flying	5	4	5	4	4	5	3	3	5	4	68
5	Tom Hanks – The Papers	6	7	3	6	7	4	5	5	4	5	58

6	Timothée Chalamet – Call Me by Your Name	4	5	8	5	2	7	6	7	6	7	53
7	Andrew Garfield – Breathe	7	6	7	7	6	6	7	6	8	6	44
8	Chadwick Boseman – Marshall	9		4	8	8	8			9	10	21
9	Jake Gyllenhaal – Stronger	8	9	6	9	10		8		10	8	20
10	Donald Sutherland – The Leisure Seeker			9	10	9			8			8
11	Hugh Jackman – The Greatest Showman						9		10	7		7
12	Javier Bardem – mother!							9	8			5
13	Benedict Cumberbatch – The Current War							10	9			3
13	Christian Bale – Hostiles		8									3
15	Ben Stiller – Brad’s Status										9	2
16	Daniel Kaluuya – Get Out		10									1
16	Charlie Plummer – Lean on Pete					10						1
16	Matt Damon – Downsizing						10					1
16	Algee Smith – Detroit	10										1

	OTHER CONTENDERS
	Adam Sandler – The Meyerowitz Stories
	Ali Fazal – Victoria and Abdul
	Ben Foster – Galveston
	Benicio Del Toro – Soldado
	Billy Howle – On Chesil Beach
	Chiwetel Ejiofor – Come Sunday
	Colin Farrell – The Killing of a Sacred Deer
	Colin Firth – The Mercy
	Daniel Craig – Kings
	Domhnall Gleeson – Goodbye Christopher Robin
	Fionn Whitehead – Dunkirk
	Geoffrey Rush – Final Portrait
	James McAvoy – Submergence
	James Franco – The Disaster Artist
	Jamie Bell – Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool
	Javier Bardem – Escobar
	Joaquin Phoenix – You Were Never Really Here
	John Boyega – Detroit
	Jonathan Pryce – The Wife
	Kevin Spacey – All the Money in the World
	Liam Neeson – Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House
	Mark Wahlberg – All the Money in the World
	Matt Damon – Suburbicon
	Michael Douglas – Head Full of Honey
	Michael Fassbender – The Snowman
	Michael Shannon – The Current War
	Ryan Gosling – Blade Runner 2049
	Steve Carell – Battle of the Sexes

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.